


Old Dog, New Tricks

by nivo



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:45:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9136846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nivo/pseuds/nivo
Summary: Yurio is but one dear, sulky teenaged slice of a much larger pie holding its breath – not that piesbreathe, but one does not marry Katsuki Yuuri and remain innocent of terrible food metaphors – for a miraculous comeback Viktor will never make, because hecan't, but perhaps more importantly, because he doesn'twantto.





	

“This is the way the world ends,” Viktor muses. “Not with a bang but a whimper.”

On the other side of the bed, Yuuri sits up to squint down at him, unimpressed.

“How is it that you can quote T. S. Eliot on the fly but can't even remember to set your alarm?”

“This is why you love me, my darling.” He taps his own temple. “It's all poetry up here.”

“ _Poetry_ ,” Yuuri echoes, his sleep-hoarse voice so perfectly deadpan and full of disbelief Viktor would laugh if he trusted himself with such overt displays of emotion at the moment.

“You know, you were a lot cuter back when you were too intimidated to talk to me.”

Yuuri just snorts and tousles Viktor's hair gently in that way he does; the one that says, _I see you, Viktor Nikiforov, you balding fool_ , and also, astonishingly, _You're very dear to me_.

“Where did you leave your pills now?” Yuuri asks, shifting the covers off his legs to get out of bed.

Viktor catches his hand.

“It's fine. Stay.”

“You're so fine The Hollow Men was the first thing that came to mind after you woke us both up at four in the morning,” Yuuri says, and Viktor almost – _almost_ – regrets helping nurture this beautiful sarcastic flower into full bloom.

Yuuri can be all steel now, when he needs to be, and Viktor can, in turn, lean into the hand cupped steady and tender to his cheek. Over the years, they've chipped and worn away each other's edges and curves like river stones and washed up, smooth and jagged in all the right places, on the same shore.

“Stay,” Viktor repeats, and can't stop marveling at his luck when Yuuri does.

 

* * *

 

 Skaters age in dog years. Seven years in one. Or was it nine? No, that's something about cats. Maybe Yurio would know.

There's only so much abuse the human body can take, and Viktor's has held up remarkably well for over two decades. He knows he really can't complain.

But for all his carefully cultivated smoke and mirrors, that's all he really is: a human in a human body, pushed well beyond the point of no return.

“Osteoarthritis,” pronounces his draconian gargoyle of an ortho; a stern, unsmiling woman with all of Lilia's ice burn professionalism and none of her ethereal beauty.

Viktor quite likes her.

“Not that I need to tell you that. Again,” she adds, carefully plucked eyebrows arched to improbable heights.

“No, I suppose not,” Viktor agrees. “I came to tell you that I'm done.”

“Very well,” says Dr. Polyakova without missing a beat, reaching for her old-fashioned appointment book. “Let's talk schedules, then, shall we?”

Viktor _really_ likes her.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri cries. It's neither surprising nor unwelcome, by virtue of being a thing that Yuuri does frequently.

“I'm sorry,” Yuuri hiccups, and Viktor knows without needing to be told that he's only apologizing for the rather unappealing patch of tears and snot he's just smeared all over the front of Viktor's t-shirt.

Yuuri would not insult him by expressing needless condolences; by implying, however indirectly, that they couldn't anticipate this outcome well in advance.

“So this is it,” Yuuri says once he's calmed down, tilting the words into something between question and statement.

“This is it,” Viktor confirms just for the sake of putting it out there. Making it real.

Yuuri, bless him, just accepts it with a nod.

They both know there will be arguments and pleas to face later; an entire ocean of _maybes_ and _howevers_ and _perhapses_ to resist and refuse. Pain, even at the excruciating level, can be overcome; put off for a while. Programs can be changed, compromises and sacrifices can be made. It's been done before by lesser athletes than him.

But what Viktor prides himself on is being a _storyteller_ , and there is no pathos in crawling across the rink like a glacier, slow and creaky, lost in the shadow cast by his own glory of days past. There is no Viktor Nikiforov without the quadruple jump; a veritable whirlwind of a move the naked eye can hardly follow or make sense of. The mere sight of turns is not what produces audience turn out; it's the very fact of _making_ that fourth, near-invisible one just for the sake of making it that enthralls people, that makes them marvel that any one person would set out to accomplish something so mind-bendingly insane, and succeed at it with such ease and grace.

Swan songs are nothing but the pitiful gurgles of dying animals. As far as Viktor is concerned, he's all out of stories worth telling.

 

* * *

  
“Whatever, my grandpa had a total hip replacement _ages_ ago and he bounced back just fine,” says Yurio with a toss of his hair, then adds in that charmingly tactless way he has, “So I guess that makes you a real geezer now, huh?”

Viktor laughs.

“I guess it does, doesn't it?” he says agreeably, because Yurio is expecting him to be anything but, and the one thing Viktor refuses to become is _predictable_.

Not that he's all that bothered by the expectations Yurio is piling on him with the helpless, furious intensity of shoveling snow from your driveway in the middle of a snowstorm when you're already twenty minutes late from work and you know deep down that the roads will be hopelessly blocked anyway.

Yurio is but one dear, sulky teenaged slice of a much larger pie holding its breath – not that pies _breathe_ , but one does not marry Katsuki Yuuri and remain innocent of terrible food metaphors – for a miraculous comeback Viktor will never make, because he _can't_ , but perhaps more importantly, because he doesn't _want_ to.

He likes to think there's an element of surprise in that, too; it's the kind of character development no one really saw coming.

 

* * *

 

This is how the world doesn't end: with quite a few whimpers and maybe a couple of bangs, too, because for two old, sick dogs essentially on house arrest, Viktor and Makkachin still manage to find ways to get into trouble.

“I was only gone for two hours,” Yuuri sighs, shaking his head at them and the mess they nonetheless managed to make of the living room.

“Sorry,” Viktor offers with complete sincerity, throwing his arms wide open to create a precise husband-sized space between them.

Yuuri huffs and shuffles into place carefully; presses a kiss to Viktor's cheek even though Viktor hasn't bothered to shave in days.

“I haven't watched this much tv since... ever,” Viktor says, only realizing how true that statement is as the words leave his mouth. “Huh.”

“Well.” Yuuri yawns and burrows into his side as much as he can without putting weight on anything fragile, which – for the moment, at least – means most of Viktor. “Don't get used to it. Yurio has enough ammunition against you without you developing an embarrassing addiction to infomercials and soap operas.”

“That would be rather unbecoming, wouldn't it.”

“Yup.”

“He would hate to be coached by a nutcase like that, wouldn't he.”

“Oh my god. I refuse to support this.”

“We should set it up by dropping a few innocuous hints first. Maybe get him one of those kitty print snuggies they were showing just now. Call now, you get two for the price of one.”

“Viktor, _no_.”

There is no pathos in real pain.

 _Real_ pain is a damp, slimy, graceless thing that tastes of sweat and tears and bile. _Real_ pain is lying sleepless in the dark, counting your own carefully measured breaths in a weak attempt to distract your own exhausted brain from the monster gnashing its teeth on your bones.

There's not much pathos in infomercials and Yuuri's giggles, either, slurred as the day catches up to him and he melts into cushions which could really use a wash to get rid of the ever-present smell of dog and convalescence.

Yuuri giggles, sleepy and pliant and wonderfully warm by Viktor's side.

The world keeps on turning.


End file.
